A nurse who has been caring for terminally ill clients for several years expresses feelings of emotional exhaustion, decreased empathy, and a desire to leave the profession. Which action by the nurse would potentially prevent compassion fatigue?

Compassion fatigue is a form of emotional and physical exhaustion resulting from prolonged exposure to end-of-life care, repeated empathic engagement, and secondary traumatic stress. It is characterized by reduced empathy, emotional numbing, and decreased professional satisfaction due to chronic caregiving strain. Rationale: A. Unit transfer to avoid emotional exposure may provide short-term relief but does not address underlying emotional processing or resilience building. It can lead to avoidance coping and persistence of burnout symptoms. Therefore escape-based coping strategy is not an effective prevention method. B. Emotional suppression at work encourages detachment rather than healthy processing of emotions, which can worsen burnout over time. Effective care requires balanced empathy, not emotional numbing. Thus emotional distancing approach does not prevent compassion fatigue. C. Professional support groups provide emotional processing, peer support, coping strategy development, and normalization of caregiver stress. This improves resilience and reduces burnout risk. Therefore structured peer support intervention is the most effective preventive strategy. D. Excessive workload through additional shifts increases fatigue, reduces recovery time, and worsens emotional exhaustion. This approach exacerbates burnout rather than preventing it. Thus overwork and maladaptive distraction is harmful.